Right Angle began as a column in the now-defunct Sunday magazine in November 1991. The column allowed me the luxury of presenting an alternative to the prevailing left-liberal consensus in India. It has become the implicit signature tune for all my subsequent writings.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Games in the BJP: What's behind Sinha's gamble (June 15, 2009)

Swapan Dasgupta

June.15 : There are two intriguing features about Yashwant Sinha’s well-crafted resignation letter that may have escaped attention amid the initial excitement over "breaking news".

First, it isn’t just a coincidence that the letter was released to a television channel (which had also been privy to Jaswant Singh’s note to the Bharatiya Janata Party core committee meeting) an hour before BJP president Rajnath Singh’s gag order.

Since no order is retrospectively applicable, Mr Sinha’s letter, it would seem, was carefully timed to take full advantage of the attendant publicity without incurring the risk of disciplinary action. Second, while Mr Sinha’s missive was ostensibly aimed at the "few higher mortals in the party", the primary target was clearly the newly-appointed Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley. True, L.K. Advani also suffered collateral damage for reneging on his initial decision to step down as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. But the primary objective of the letter was to throw as much mud as possible on Mr Jaitley and paint him as a manipulative, self-seeking and controversial functionary.

Shooting the messenger is a time-honoured tradition. Yet what is intriguing is the deftness with which Mr Sinha avoided pinning any responsibility for the 2009 debacle on the venerable who acted on the belief that a lost "semi-final" would herald a victory in the finals of 2014, the man who chose to elevate Varun Gandhi from a political deviant to an ideological icon, and the man who has so far resisted a structured party post-mortem on the ground that the exercise has been outsourced to a three-man team from a fraternal organisation. That such a person was not a harmless crank dabbling in astrology but was at the organisational helm of the BJP, has strengthened the belief that the rebellion of the left-out and lost generation was actually choreographed from somewhere in the long expanse of Ashoka Road.

Add to that the contrived aggression with which BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy defended Mr Jaswant Singh and equated Sudheendra Kulkarni’s disingenuous soul-searching with an article by Mr Jaitley, and there is every reason to suspect that the turbulence in the BJP is nothing short of an orchestrated battle for the control of the organisation.

Mr Sinha, who didn’t shy away from being "accommodated" in the Rajya Sabha after his 2004 defeat, may have an agenda entirely different from those who are complimenting him for putting Mr Jaitley in the crosshairs. But his visceral dislike of the general secretary who dared question the overkill opposition to the Indo-US nuclear agreement, allowed him to make common cause and become the stalking horse for a group that faces near-extinction if a new party president assumes charge next year. Mr Sinha hasn’t blown his chances in the BJP. His apparent recklessness was premised on the gamble that targeted muckraking could force some nervous men in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to prefer an organisational status quo after December. If that happens, the MP for Hazaribagh will be back on the BJP front bench.

The moratorium on all public debate that followed Mr Sinha’s resignation was not an act of firmness by a selfless apparatchik concerned with the image of disarray in a dejected party. Behind the supposedly sombre directive to distance the party from the oxygen of media publicity was the Cheshire Cat smile of a poacher turned gamekeeper.

The tragic story of the latest bout of bloodletting in the BJP is that the right questions have been asked but often for the wrong reasons. The MP from Darjeeling was entirely right to highlight the growing disrepute of Hindutva as a badge of identity — an issue over which there is an emerging consensus in the BJP. Unfortunately, the political efficacy of his intervention in the core committee was diluted by a churlishness over losing the privileges that came with his earlier job as Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. Likewise, Rajya Sabha MP Kalraj Mishra set the cat among the pigeons by speaking about the alleged sale of BJP tickets in Uttar Pradesh. It is a matter of incidental detail that a thorough probe into the process of ticket distribution may not necessarily cast him in a very positive light.

Two games are being played simultaneously within the BJP. First, there appears to be a determined resistance by some BJP elders, particularly those in their mid-60s and above, to a generational change in the party. Had the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won the 2009 election, many of today’s dissidents would have been accommodated in the Cabinet and a few others pensioned off as governors.

With official avenues of advancement closed after the defeat, the elders have unfurled the banner of revolt in the belief that this will ensure their accommodation in the party. Their real fear is that Mr Advani will step aside only after he ensures that his handpicked Generation Next exercises collective control over the party. A pre-emptive revolt was aimed at arousing the hierarchical instincts of RSS veterans who also fear that the new RSS chief, Mohan Bhagwat, has similar ideas.

Alongside this battle against superannuation is the battle over ideas. A reason why the BJP has hitherto not permitted a structured post-mortem is rooted in the intellectual insecurities of a few leaders. There is a scriptural positioning that stems from learning a few homilies by rote — what Communists call "the line" — but far more challenging is the ability to blend ideas with situations. Such an acumen distinguished Mr Advani from the rest of his colleagues, including Atal Behari Vajpayee. Today, unfortunately, the BJP at the Centre is being held hostage to the philistinism of those who cannot distinguish between politics and politicking and who have mortgaged decision-making to those with an ability to pay.

The post-defeat turbulence marks a quiet battle between those who want the BJP to be a wholesome and sober nationalist party, and those who have little inhibitions against making it a variant of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.

2 comments:

I have been commenting on the other blog. Now a comment in the Right Angle.

These games in the BJP are a natural corollary of a wanting leadership in the party. The leadership was non-performing before the elections. It was invisible during the elections and is in a Kumbhkaran State of deep slumber after the defeat.

The inferences you draw from the ongoing complaining may be right or wrong, I'm not in a position to comment.

But I must add that all the utterances are in order. How else do you pull out the party leadership from the Kumbkarna State?

Moreover, Mr. Sinha has categorically stated that he did not leak the letter to NDTV! Then who did? Was it someone from the Ashok Road? They sure wanted to put a stop to such complaints against themselves! Was the going to press an insider job?

For an ordinary party worker like me Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha are articulating 'our' feelings. They may or not have a different agenda. In contrast the general secretary has been conveniently adjusted, with the attendant 'perks'! Why should he articulate the workers feelings? Yet I have welcomed this appointment in your blog itself.

I must say that all these names represent the modern, liberal and acceptable face of the BJP. We need them all. Ofcourse we need a generational change in leadership. Remember Sachin Tendulkar now plays 'under' Dhoni, but is a team member. So the party elders too can work 'under' a younger leadership, but still be team members.

About Me

The Right is an endangered community in India's English-language media. I happen to be one of the few to have retained a precarious toehold in the mainstream media. I intend this blog as a sounding board of ideas and concerns.
You can read the details of my education, professional experience and political inclinations on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapan_Dasgupta).
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